Browns and Grays need each other more than they know

Published 5:05 pm, Sunday, August 7, 2011

When Gov. Rick Perry showed up in San Antonio earlier this summer to deliver brief remarks to the annual gathering of the National Association of Latino Elected Officials, he sauntered inadvertently into a demographic dispute of epic proportions.

The courteous but cool reception the governor got that day was yet another manifestation of a tussle that regularly roiled the recent legislative session in Austin and one that will, in part, shape the coming presidential contest. Certainly, it will shape Texas politics for the foreseeable future.

Former state demographer Steven Murdock, now director of Rice University's Hobby Center for the Study of Texas, says the reason Perry was received less than enthusiastically by the officially nonpartisan group was not simply a matter of liberal versus conservative, brown versus white or Republican versus Democrat. The tension in the hotel ballroom had its roots in a deeper demographic split, he says, one between the old and the young. The old happen to be predominantly Anglo, the young predominantly Hispanic.

The political divide between the two groups is stark. In a Pew Research Center survey released earlier this year, only 23 percent of white seniors said they preferred a larger government that offers more services; 61 percent preferred a smaller government that offers fewer services. Among minorities, the percentages were reversed: 62 percent preferred a larger government, 28 percent a smaller one.

Murdock, who also participated in the NALEO conference, maintains that the two forces represented that day in San Antonio actually depend on each other more than either usually acknowledges. How - or whether - they work out a rapprochement will have a powerful effect on the economic and social future of Texas and the nation.

"There's a wonderful argument about the need for an inter-generational compact," says Murdock's Rice colleague, Stephen Klineberg, a sociology professor, who for three decades has directed the Houston Area Survey. "The aging baby boomers who are moving into retirement, 76 million babies born during that incredible period 1946 to 1964, have a stake in making sure that these Latino and African-American kids are well-educated to get the good jobs and are well-paid - so that we can tax the daylights out of them."

Ronald Brownstein of the National Journal has labeled the conflict "brown versus gray." The brown is the demographic tsunami of young Hispanics who account for most of the growth of Texas and the nation and who view government as a tool for advancement. The gray is composed of aging baby boomers increasingly distrustful of government spending and averse to higher taxes.

In San Antonio, Perry articulated the "gray" position. He chose to highlight the state's success at growing jobs and attracting businesses during his decade as governor. That success, he maintained, was the result of his business-friendly approach to governing: low taxes, sensible regulation, a legal system that discourages frivolous lawsuits and a reliable public school system.

What he did not mention were sizable cuts in state funding for public and higher education, health care and other social services, cuts he had championed during the legislative session. Nor did he mention a couple of his "emergency" legislative items - voter ID and "sanctuary cities" - that Hispanic lawmakers found particularly offensive.

Earlier, the NALEO audience had heard from one of the nation's rising "brown" stars, San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro. The young second-term mayor, a Democrat, excoriated elected officials who refuse to invest in education. He described the recent legislative session as "the most anti-Latino agenda we've seen in more than a generation, without shame."

Castro is well aware that Hispanics soon will surpass Anglos as the state's largest population group; they account for most of the state's population growth from 2000 to 2010. In Houston, Klineberg notes, 68 percent of everyone over 60 is Anglo; 78 percent of everyone under 30 is non-Anglo.

Rear-guard action

Meanwhile, as the initial wave of baby boomers rolls into retirement this year, four-fifths of the nation's rapidly expanding senior population is white.

That proportion will gradually decline in the coming decades, but whites still will represent nearly two-thirds of seniors in 2041. In Austin and other state capitols - as well as in Washington - the grays are fighting a rear-guard action to preserve not only power and influence, but also the world they once knew.

"The power is concentrated in the hands of the old guard, and they know how to use it, but the age forces are just inexorable," Klineberg says. "There's an inevitability to this transformation that is enormously powerful."

State Rep. Mike Villarreal, D-San Antonio, saw the tension arise early in the session during the budget debate over health care, specifically whether to cut programs that benefited children or those that benefited the elderly.

"Ultimately, those in charge decided to go with the seniors," he recalls. "Seniors vote, and their children are voting age. They vote, too."

The generational mismatch is a result of federal policies that severely reduced immigration from the 1920s until Congress loosened restrictions in 1965. With immigration curtailed, whites remained an overwhelming majority of American society through the mid-20th century.

The world baby boomers recall from their formative years grows increasingly distant from the world they see today. The schools, the neighborhoods and increasingly the power structure in their communities are becoming less white. Aging Anglos feel less of a connection to the institutions they helped build, less of an obligation to help them thrive.

Workforce challenge

Bill Hammond, a former state legislator who heads the conservative-leaning Texas Association of Business, has tried to bridge the demographic divide. "Education is the key," he says. "The most important policy issue facing Texas is how to educate minority young people."

Texas is one of three states, along with New Mexico and California, where Hispanics are likely to represent at least 20 percent of the electorate in 2012. Despite their burgeoning numbers, they still may be a couple of decades away from political dominance, Murdock says, in part because the population is young and relatively ill-educated, in part because many are not citizens.

The drive toward political prowess may accelerate, he says, in response to such initiatives as voter ID, "sanctuary cities" and redistricting that ignored Hispanic population growth.

Whether that happens, Murdock argues that aging Anglos cannot afford to scrimp on investing in the young, even during times of austerity.

"The biggest challenge that Texas has is a workforce whose skill level is in decline," Villarreal says. "The quality of our workforce is going to determine the quality of our economy and the quality of our life."